This is a really weird one. I have a laptop here that takes the regular amount of time to boot to Windows, but as soon as Windows is loaded it slows to a crawl.

I literally have to leave it there for 15 minutes, then I'll see the login page come up (it logs in automatically through registry), say it's loading profile and sit there another 15 minutes... every step that would normally take 30sec-2min takes a good 10-15 minutes here.

Once the icons are showing on the desktop, the taskbar should be showing too, but it's just black and again takes longer to show properly. I click Start and the response is again delayed forever... I can't even get into Windows Explorer to copy files off, I had to pull the HDD and hook it up to my computer.

Safe mode doesn't run any quicker which makes diagnosing with any Windows-based software impossible (except I guess a WinPE instance or a dual-boot). I have to send it to the manufacturer to be reimaged because it has a special set of software on it, but before I call in the cavalry like that I thought I'd see if maybe there's something else I can try. I tried to run system restore and it said "System Restore is unable to protect your computer" or something to that effect and told me to reboot, which didn't help.

I would boot with the WinPE disk and examine the services that are starting and disable some of the "odd" services (keeping track so that you can re-enable later). Services because you said that it slows before the logon screen. You can also check for programs that are being loaded by checking the registry for programs set to run at startup/logon.

I have experienced a Hdd failing create this kind of behavior as well. Safe Mode performance suggests this as a possibility.

Guess I missed a part... I was able to get into task manager, nothing odd seemed to be running and when I shut down extraneous services it didn't get any more responsive. I will do a checkdisk though thanks guys.

It might be the hardware starting to fail. HD going bad, slowing down, RAM not performing like it did.

You can try a few things to try and help it along. Check the startup thru msconfig to make sure there isn't a ton of stuff starting like updates, etc. Also thru advanced system settings and Performance, set it to the best performance instead of best appearance or let windows decide.

While on the subject of failing HDD, I just use the common seatools. I once had an issue with a WD Black HDD that was super slow. It came back as a passed HDD, but after I switched to a Seagate HDD, the issue resolved.

If possible, I would pull the HDD and transfer content to another HDD to eyeball read/write speeds. You can probably tell from there what is going on.

Looks like it was the hard drive. I ran a chkdsk while plugged into my laptop through a USB dealy and yeah she's toast but I did manage to pull files off of it for him. Thanks for the help guys... As I get more into the system admin stuff sometimes I forget the simplest things when diagnosing computers. I am recertifying with Dell and their training is really good, it's a nice refresher.

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